Many woodworking operations, particularly cutting finger joints, slots, and decorative trims, require precise location of the cut, especially for tightly-fitting adjacent components. Plunge routers are widely used by woodworkers in order to accomplish such precisely located cuts in manufacturing fitting joints, slot mortising, horizontal boring, and over-arm routing operations.
Router tables are also widely used because of their ability to make more precise cuts than can be made by hand. A router table is typically a horizontal work surface under which a conventional router may be mounted in order to use it as a shaper by moving a workpiece relative to the router bit, rather than moving the router bit relative to the workpiece. Often, such router tables are inconvenient to use because adjustment of router bit position must be accomplished by adjusting the router on its base, which is difficult to do with the router mounted upside down underneath a router table.
In some types of woodworking, such as mortise and tenon work, it is desirable to allow universal variation of the main table and router bit with respect to the workpiece. To maintain the workpiece in position relative to the cutter bit, some prior art router tables are provided with elongated fences that are connected to the top of the main table so that they can be moved laterally toward and away from the cutter bit. In this type of arrangement, it may be cumbersome and potentially dangerous for a user to attempt certain horizontal end cuts while manually holding the workpiece against the fence in a position perpendicular to the main table.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a router table which allows safe and convenient positioning and securing of a workpiece in positions perpendicular to the main table while allowing simple and accurate adjustment of the router bit with respect to the workpiece.